The 2022 film that earned Bill Nighy an Academy Award nomination was Living.
Nighy was nominated for Best Actor for playing Mr. Williams, a reserved civil servant confronting a terminal illness and reconsidering how he has spent his life. The performance was widely praised for its restraint, precision, and emotional gradualism rather than conventional melodrama.
Living is a British historical drama directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. It adapts Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Japanese film Ikiru, relocating the story to postwar London. The setting makes the character’s struggle with bureaucracy, routine, and personal purpose especially central to the film.
At the 95th Academy Awards, Living received two nominations: Best Actor for Nighy and Best Adapted Screenplay for Ishiguro. The nomination marked Nighy’s first Oscar recognition. It is separate from his earlier acclaimed roles in Love Actually, The Constant Gardener, and the Pirates of the Caribbean films.